Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service is becoming a highly popular alternative to conventional plain old telephone system (POTS) service traditionally used by customers and typically provided by the large telecommunication companies. As opposed to conventional circuit-switched networks, VoIP uses the Internet or other packet-switched networks to transmit voice between parties.
A customer that has VoIP as their only telephone service is faced with a challenge when they wish to have a monitored alarm system service. A typical wiring requirement for an alarm system is that the alarm system is the first device after the telephone service and before any other phones. This allows the alarm system to disconnect all other phones from the telephone line and then seize the line for exclusive alarm system use, such as to dial a remote monitoring facility, when the alarm is tripped.
For VoIP telephone service, it may not be possible to meet the alarm wiring requirements for line seizure. VoIP is deployed at the customer premises via a multimedia terminal adaptor (MTA). The MTA interfaces with an IP network and is operable to adapt VoIP data for use by customer premises equipment (CPE) devices, such as telephones, fax machines, answering machines, etc. The MTA may be embedded in a modem, such as a cable modem or DSL modem, as an embedded MTA (EMTA) or may be provided as a standalone device connected to the modem.
It is becoming more common to co-locate an EMTA and a telephone, such as a cordless telephone base station, in a single device. In this configuration, it is not possible to meet the alarm wiring requirement for line seizure, because the alarm system cannot be made the first device after the telephone service and before any other phones. Instead, in this integrated configuration of the EMTA and base station, the base station is hard wired as the next device after the EMTA. Thus, if the alarm system is connected to the base station or after the base station, then the alarm system cannot seize the line in emergency situations.
Even for EMTAs that do not include an embedded cordless telephone base station, the EMTA is connected directly to a telephone circuit providing connection to a twisted pair local loop at the customer premises. In this situation, the alarm system can be coupled to the local loop, but coupling the alarm system to the local loop does not meet the wiring requirements for the alarm system. Typical wiring requirements include a home run from the alarm system to the phone line that connects to the central office, which may be provided with a direct wired connection between the alarm system panel and a panel at the customer premises providing connection to a central office. Simply connecting the alarm system to a local loop does not provide the home run connection, and thus the alarm system may not be able to seize the line and may be susceptible to tampering.